Emory Critical Care Center

Welcome to the Emory Critical Care Center.

The center was founded in 2009 and aims to deliver the highest quality, value and access to critical care for patients in the southeastern USA.

If your family member could benefit from our services, please ask your physician to contact Emory’s Transfer Service at 404-686-8334for an immediate consultation with our professional staff. The sooner we know, the sooner we can offer appropriate critical care services.

Team-Based Care

Our team-based care is delivered by more than 40 intensive care physicians, 450 critical care nurses, and 60 affiliate (nurse practitioner and physician assistant) providers enhanced by pharmacists, respiratory therapists, nutrition support specialists and consultant physicians representing dozens of medical specialties. Each has special interest, training and advanced competency in the care of the critically ill patient and their family.

We're all in this together

Our foundational strategy is high-reliability health care. We practice patient-family centered critical care through individualized selection from menus of standardized plans, protocols and procedures. This standardized approach to care means that our consistent practice produces predictable outcomes in most patients and thereby allows the team to recognize and modify the care approach sooner when a particular patient does not respond as expected. Each patient and their family is cared for by a critical care nurse and critical care affiliate provider 24 hours a day. Each ICU is directed by an intensive care physician medical director, a critical care nurse director and a lead affiliate provider who, along with their professional colleagues, are directly responsible for the quality and safety of care delivered in their ICU.

Emory Healthcare is a network composed of some of the finest health care professionals and hospitals in the country. As one of the leading academic medical systems in the nation, we have a responsibility to question every aspect of health care and redefine how it is delivered. It's said that if we, as a nation, cannot fix health care, we cannot fix the economy. Emory will change conventional thinking by leading the discourse. We will work together to reinvent health care for the 21st century. We will bring the best of what we provide now, and make it better for every patient we care for. "Good enough" will never be good enough. We empower anyone and everyone who works within the Emory network to influence change. With open arms, open minds and open hearts, we welcome new ideas. We will share what we learn with hospitals around the country, and the world, to define a new standard of care for humankind.

The Emory Critical Care Center and Emory Healthcare take pride in comprehensive support of patients and family throughout the arc of critical illness. In addition to the most advanced technical care services, the center partners with Emory’s Palliative Care Center to alleviate the unpleasant symptoms of critical illness, to support families through their loved one’s illness and to serve as the patient/family advocate when facing complicated decisions about the extent and goals of life-supporting treatments. The center recognizes that each patient/family unit is unique and always strives to meet their unique goals in the context of what is medically possible.

Our Teaching Mission

As part of the Woodruff Health Science Center, the Emory Critical Care Center is strongly committed to educating healthcare professionals to the highest standards of critical care delivery.

Physician learners in our ICUs include fourth-year Emory medical students; interns and residents from the specialties of internal medicine, general surgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, neurology and neurosurgery; and advanced fellows who are studying to become intensive care physicians. Their participation is always supervised by fully licensed and qualified critical care professionals present in each ICU, around the clock. Emory is proud to sponsor accredited fellowships in pulmonary/medical critical care; in surgical critical care, in anesthesiology critical care; and in neuroscience critical care and welcomes applications from those disciplines as well as from emergency physicians seeking advanced training.

Emory’s commitment to multi-professional critical care education includes not only rotations for nurse practitioners and physician assistants during their Master’s level training, but also a unique year-long advanced post-graduate training program (“residency”) in critical care for physician assistants and acute care nurse practitioners who plan careers in our discipline.

Education of critical care nurses is central to the center's mission. The Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing matriculates approximately 100 nurses annually whose curriculum includes rotations through the center. Emory’s advanced practice nurse programs, including the aforementioned acute care nurse practitioner training program, are managed by the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

The center is privileged to partner with our Pharmacy professionals in hosting an accredited residency in Critical Care Pharmacy. This advanced, year-long training prepares the graduate Pharm. D. for practice in multidisciplinary critical care, including clinical practice, health services research and administrative leadership in critical care.

The center supports regional and national education through standard courses for critical care professionals (such as the Fundamental Critical Care Skills course of the Society of Critical Care Medicine); through the annual Respiratory and Critical Care Course designed and delivered by Emory’s Department of Respiratory Therapy; through the annual regional meeting of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses; and through the annual Southeastern Critical Care Summit led by our Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Emory’s critical care professionals are available to community hospitals for critical care education and to lay audiences for news and information about the cutting-edge care that we offer.

Discovery and Innovation: The Best Care Today and Better Care Tomorrow

Our academic critical care center leads the nation in designing, testing and implementing innovations in critical care. Partnering throughout Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center, the Emory Critical Care Center is able to offer not only state-of-the-art care but also access to experimental treatments that may benefit you or your loved one. Emory is internationally recognized for its contributions in many domains of critical care including the diagnosis and treatment of severe infection, the management of severe respiratory, heart and kidney diseases, and many other areas of patient care.

Our research begins at the bedside, seeking better ways to care for our patients and their families. Our efforts have resulted in better ways to treat many of the common life-threats encountered in critical care, from severe heart failure to overwhelming infection.

Your time and money are key to discoveries to improve care for you and your loved ones

We wish that our web presence brings you information, comfort and hope for the health and safety of you and your family. We need your support. There are opportunities to volunteer your time to assist others who are facing critical illness. There are ongoing research projects that will lead to the next important discovery. Please help us help others. Send us a message to criticalcare.ehc@emoryhealthcare.org and we’ll be happy to provide you with information.

In closing, thank you for visiting our website. Whether you are a patient, family member or healthcare professional, the Emory Critical Care Center is committed to meeting your needs. Please let us know how we can serve you most effectively by messaging us at criticalcare.ehc@emoryhealthcare.org.

This Web site is provided as a courtesy to those interested in Emory Healthcare and does not constitute medical advice and does not create any physician/patient relationship. Also, Emory Healthcare does not endorse or recommend any specific commercial product or service. This Web site is provided solely for personal and private use of individuals accessing this information, and no part of it may be used for any other purpose.